ANOTHER ENGLISH COMPANY.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume IX, Issue 692, 11 June 1903, Page 10

ANOTHER ENGLISH COMPANY.

Mr J. C. Williamson has concluded arrangements with Mr Beerbohm Tree for a new dramatic company, which will open In Australia in September. The combination will be headed by Mr Julius Knight and Miss Maud Jeffries, both Gid favourites here. The repertoire will include Tolstoi’s “ Resurrection,” “ The Eternal City” (Hall Caine), “Monsieur Beaucaire ” (Booth Tarkington)—a play which has just reached its 200th night at the London 11 Comedy Theatre—‘and probably “ The Darling of the Gods.” This last piece, written from a Japanese legend by David Belasco, is| a New York success which Mr Tree proposes to produce in London at the end of the year.

My Christchurch dramatic correspondent writes :—“ Our old friend John Fuller certainly has no cause to complain about the patrowage accorded so far to his Opera House vaudeville, entertainments. In spite of the counter-attraction at the Royal, Fuller’s show has been packed every night last week. Of course, the popular John Fuller himself is a great draw. He is a deserved favourite with Christchurch audiences. His singing of the ° Excelsior ” duet with Miss Amy Blackie has been one of the hits of the present bill ever since the opening night. People are talking of his performance. The song, as John himself, describes it, is ‘ a vocal gem.’ I fancy Fuller’s varieties at the Opera House have come to stay. . . . Cooper and Macdermott’s excellent Biograph Show, at the Canterbury Hall, did good business all the time. It has now gone South. The prices of admission are so moderate as to be out of all proportion to the merit of the entertainment. . ~ . Your intelligent comp. * set up ’ one name

mentioned in my last notes wrongly. I wrote that Miss Bush (who leaves for London by the Papanui to join Mde. Belle Cole) had had a most successful benefit here. The intelligent comp, aforesaid made it read ‘ Miss Buck/ which knocked all the sense out of the par in one act. I’d like, if you don’t mind, for this to be corrected in your next. ‘ Miae Buck ’ is a fiction. Miss Bush is well known and much efeteemed locally, both on account of her undoubted talent and because of her personal qualities. We all wish her success. . . . Lots of people here are glad Harold Ashton has returned to Maoriland. When he reaches this dusty town with ‘ Are You a Mason?’ he i» sure of a right royal welcome.” *

A Chicago woman, after reading Tolstoi’s “ Resurrection,” the book from which the play now running at His Majesty’s Theatre, London, was taken, 'committed suicide by poisoning herself. She stated that she felt herself to be a secondMaslowa, whose life, however, lacked the redemption vouchsafed to the Russian heroine.

Miss Nance O’Neil has been engaged by Mr Charles Frohman to re-open the Herald Square Theatre, in New York, with “ Queen Elizabeth ” and “ Macbeth.” Miss O’Neil should do well with the former, but will probably receive a warm reception at the handsi of the critics when she appears in “ Macbeth.” '

The “ Stage,” referring to “La Toledad,” at the Windsor Royal, says : —•“ La Maracoma, the aunt, is undertaken by Miss Emily Soldene, whom. old playgoers remember as one of the principals of the light operatic stage a, generation ago, when she charmed all London as Genevieve de Brabant. She sings a kissing song, and generally does very good work, especially with the Antonio, impersonated by Mr Alec. Marsh.”

My Napier correspondent writes, on May so “ Last Friday night Dix’s Gaiety Company opened in the Theatre Royal for a two nights’ stay. Fairly good houses were in evidence on both evenings. , ■. 1 . The popularity of the Taylor-Carrington Dramatic organisation was further evidenced on Thursday night, when the company made their re-appearance here at the Theatre Royal, and played to good house* for three nights. The completenees m every matter of detail that the management make in the production of their pieces shows beyond doubt that there are master hands controlling every department of the business. The dramas staged were ‘ Never Despair,’ ‘ls She Guiltless,’ and ‘ Arrah-Na-Pogue.’ ”